The present invention relates to an air conditioner which blows air subjected to heat exchange between the air and an indoor side heat exchanger to perform at least heating of a room to be conditioned, thereby enabling effective air conditioning in accordance with an outside air temperature.
Heretofore, for example, an air conditioner having a refrigerating cycle constituted of a compressor, a condenser, a pressure reducing unit and an evaporator has been used for air conditioning such as cooling, heating or drying in a room to be conditioned. When a cooling operation is performed, an indoor side heat exchanger operates as the evaporator to cool the inside of the room to be conditioned. When a heating operation is performed, the indoor side heat exchanger operates as the evaporator to heat the inside of the room to be conditioned.
In a main body of an indoor unit provided with the indoor side heat exchanger, a blower is disposed which sucks air into the main body through a suction port and discharges the air subjected to heat exchange between the air and the indoor side heat exchanger through a blowing port. When this blower is set to an ‘automatic air flow’ operation, a revolution speed, i.e., a velocity (flow rate) of the air discharged from the indoor unit is controlled based on a difference between a set temperature set by a controller and a temperature in the room to be conditioned detected by a room temperature sensor (a sucked air temperature) (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-332593).
On the other hand, when an outside air temperature is low, a floor surface temperature is often remarkably lower than a room temperature in the room where the air conditioner is installed. In this case, during the above-mentioned ‘automatic flow rate’ operation, when the present indoor temperature rises as much as a certain degree by hot air discharged from the air conditioner installed in an upper part of the room, the flow rate is automatically switched from ‘strong wind’ to ‘weak wind’, ‘breeze’ or the like. In this case, a person in the room feels coldness from a floor surface or a wall surface having a low temperature, and hence feels that the flow rate lowers although a feeling temperature is lower than the present temperature (the displayed present temperature). In particular, when the outside air temperature is low, the person is remarkably influenced by the lowered floor surface temperature, and feels slowness in a heating speed.
The present invention has been developed to solve the conventional technical problems, and an object thereof is to provide an air conditioner which can realize appropriate air conditioning control in a situation close to a feeling temperature even when a floor surface temperature in a room to be conditioned is low.